Philosophia (2011) 39:179–200 DOI 10.1007/s11406-010-9262-9 Moral Responsibility Invariantism Brandon Warmke Received: 1 March 2010 /Revised: 7 May 2010 /Accepted: 26 July 2010 / Published online: 17 September 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract Moral responsibility invariantism is the view that there is a single set of conditions for being morally responsible for an action (or omission or consequence of an act or omission) that applies in all cases. I defend this view against some recent arguments by Joshua Knobe and John Doris. Keywords Moral responsibility. Doris . Knobe . Experimental philosophy Introduction Suppose I punch you in the face. Philosophers writing on moral responsibility have typically (but by no means universally) thought that there are three central kinds of conditions that must be met in order for an agent to be morally responsible for doing something like punching you in the face. First, an agent must, in so acting, meet a control (or freedom) condition. Some philosophers think this means that we just must be able to guide our actions in certain ways—that we are not compelled or forced to act by coercion, for example. Some other philosophers think that in order to meet the control condition, agents need to have so-called “alternative possibilities” available to them—the future must be open. But whatever specific kind of control condition is necessary for being morally responsible for an action (or omission, or consequence of an action or omission1), there is widespread agreement that some control condition is necessary. Second, many philosophers have thought that in order to be morally responsible for an action, an agent must meet an epistemic condition. Suppose I punch you in the face because I am practicing my boxing while wearing a blind-fold in what I have 1For ease of expression I will henceforth suppress these second two disjuncts and speak in terms of responsibility for actions. B. Warmke (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Social Science Bldg. Rm 213, PO Box 210027, Tucson, Arizona 85721‐0027, USA e-mail: [email protected] 180 Philosophia (2011) 39:179–200 good reason to believe is an empty room, and that you happen to walk accidentally into my flying fist. Many philosophers think that in a case like this, I am not morally responsible for punching you because I was non-culpably ignorant of certain relevant facts about the context of my action (e.g. the facts that you were in the way of my flying fist and that my punching you would harm you). Third, many philosophers argue that agents must also meet some kind of authenticity condition. Suppose a mad scientist manipulates my brain or brainwashesmeinsuchawaysoastogivemestrongdesirestopunchothersin the face, desires I did not have before her manipulation or brainwashing. Such philosophers hold that even if I acted freely and in full awareness of what I was doing, I may not be morally responsible for punching you if the strong desires on which I acted were implanted in me by a process circumventing typical processes of desire-acquisition.2 Not surprisingly, not all philosophers writing on moral responsibility agree that these three conditions, broadly construed and as I have outlined them, are indi- vidually necessary and jointly sufficient for being morally responsible for an action.3 Even less surprising, few philosophers agree as to the specific content of these conditions. (Consider the cottage industry devoted to contentious “Frankfurt-style cases”—cases putatively showing that alternative possibilities are not necessary for being morally responsible.) Aside from all of these differences, however, Joshua Knobe and John Doris have recently argued4 that philosophers who are working to find a set of conditions for being morally responsible for an action are united in utilizing the same research program, one that is guided by two assumptions: Invariantist Assumption: There is a single set of conditions for being morally responsible for an action that applies in all cases. Conservativist Assumption: The conditions for being morally responsible for an action should accord with all (or most) of our ordinary judgments about the conditions under which an agent is morally responsible and we can discover these conditions by considering these ordinary judgments. The Invariantist Assumption is a metaphysical claim about the existence of a single set of necessary and sufficient conditions for being morally responsible for an action. The Conservativist Assumption is a methodological claim about how we are to go about discovering that set of conditions. The assumption is that the conditions of moral responsibility can be discovered by considering our ordinary judgments and that were we to discover the conditions for being morally responsible, that discovery should leave those ordinary judgments largely unchanged. Given a large and growing body of literature on the psychology of responsibility attribution, however, Knobe and Doris argue that ordinary judgments of moral 2 Haji (1998, ch. 1) organizes these three broad conditions in roughly this way also. 3 For example, Fischer and Ravizza (1998) fold an authenticity condition into their control condition. Others, like Sher (2009), have strong doubts about the epistemic condition. 4 Knobe and Doris (2010). All references to Knobe and Doris in this paper are to their paper “Strawsonian Variations: Folk Morality and the Search for a Unified Theory,” to appear in J.M. Doris et al. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Philosophia (2011) 39:179–200 181 responsibility do not reveal a single set of criteria that people use to attribute responsibility in all cases. Therefore: Empirical Conclusion: Empirical studies of ordinary judgments of responsibility attribution reveal that there is no single set of conditions under which the folk attribute responsibility. Knobe and Doris then argue that given the Empirical Conclusion, we are stuck with a dilemma. We can continue to hold that there is a single set of conditions for moral responsibility, but if we were to do so, we would have to give up the conservativist methodology. On the other hand, we can continue to use a methodology that consults our ordinary judgments, but if we were to do so, we would have to abandon the assumption that there is a single set of conditions for moral responsibility. More succinctly: given the Empirical Conclusion, we can retain invariantism or conservativism, but not both. And for Strawsonian reasons, Knobe and Doris conclude that we would do best to reject invariantism. In this paper I defend moral responsibility invariantism. Contrary to what Knobe and Doris claim, those philosophers who are committed to both Invariance and Conservatism (call them ‘Standard Theorists’) need not revise their research program in light of the current empirical literature. In Sections II and III, I will explain both the Invariantist and Conservativist Assumptions and show how Standard Theorists are alleged to employ them. In Section IV, I will briefly review some of the relevant psychological literature that Knobe and Doris cite in support of the Empirical Conclusion, and explain why they think this poses a problem for Standard Theorists. My discussion turns critical in Sections V–VII where I argue that Knobe and Doris have yet to show why the Standard Theorist is committed to any kind of inconsistency and that therefore Standard Theorists are currently under no burden to give up moral responsibility invariantism. The Invariantist Assumption Knobe and Doris take as their foil a group of philosophers of moral responsibility they claim to be committed to two assumptions. The first of these is the assumption that there is a single set of invariantist criteria for being morally responsible for an action. An invariantist theory of responsibility is a theory that says that the conditions under which an agent is morally responsible for an action are universal and exceptionless; the conditions apply to everyone regardless of context. Invariantist theories therefore demand that when making judgments of moral responsibility, we should always use the same criteria. Knobe and Doris claim that at least since Strawson’s landmark essay, “Freedom and Resentment,” philosophers of moral responsibility have simply assumed that our account of the conditions under which an agent is morally responsible for an action ought to be invariantist.5 They describe this assumption this way: The assumption is that people should apply the same criteria in all of their moral responsibility judgments. In other words, it is supposed to be possible to 5 (Knobe and Doris 2010) 182 Philosophia (2011) 39:179–200 come up with a single basic set of criteria that can account for all moral responsibility judgments in all cases—judgments about both abstract questions and concrete questions, about morally good behaviors and morally bad behaviors, about the behaviors of one’s close friends and the behaviors of complete strangers. It is supposed to be completely obvious, and hence in need of no justification or argument, that we ought to apply the same criteria in all cases rather than applying different criteria in different cases. This assumption is so basic that it has never even been given a name. We will refer to it as the assumption of invariance. (Knobe and Doris 2010) In contrast to an invariantist theory of moral responsibility for actions, a variantist theory would claim that the conditions under which an agent